Sub-Zero and his impressive record of kills are coming to the latest big screen Mortal Kombat tournament, and someone who has an his own record of martial arts mastery has been chosen to play him. Indonesian actor and martial artist Joe Taslim will be bringing Sub-Zero to the James Wan produced Mortal Kombat when it hits theaters in 2021.
Joe Taslim got his start by training in several martial arts, including Wushu, Taekwondo and Judo. He really found his footing in the latter art, becoming a member of Indonesia's national Judo team, where he won several gold medals from 1997 through 2009. Taslim got his film start in the 2008 Indonesian thriller Karma, but really came to prominence when he co-starred in 2011's The Raid: Redemption.
Since then, he's also appeared in action films like Fast & Furious 6, Star Trek Beyond and The Night Comes for Us, so he's got plenty of big screen experience to back up his real world skills. It should be tons of fun watching this dude pull some combatant's spine right outta his body to win a fight, amirite?
It's been almost three years exactly since horror-meister / Aquaman director James Wan, who'd been attached to produce Mortal Kombat for about a year, said that it would take some time for the film to develop. Considering that the video games the film will be based on focus on a huge roster of players from a fictional universe who battle it out to win dominance over the realms, that made a lot of sense. And while he was indeed correct, updates on the movie, which has now moved fully into pre-production, have been coming along nicely for the past few months.
Mortal Kombat will film in Australia, where Wan made Aquaman, and will be the feature directorial debut of commercial director Simon McQuoid, with Larry Kasanoff, Michael Clear, E. Bennett Walsh and Sean Robins executive producing and Todd Garner producing alongside Wan. The film has set a release date of March 5, 2021, where it's currently set to go up against the new Masters of the Universe movie.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Joe Taslim is the first actor to sign on the dotted line for the updated Mortal Kombat, but there are likely tons of actors and martial artists who would kill someone in a brutal street fight to play one of the iconic characters from the long-running video game franchise. Where there were two previous films made off of the games in 1995 and 1997, the Mortal Kombat games themselves have been going strong since 1992. Taslim's character, Sub-Zero, has been a part of the franchise from the beginning and is known for attacking opponents with ice.
Seeing as how Mortal Kombat has millions of fans around the world, you can bet that more updates on the movie will be coming along as the year rolls along, so be sure to stay tuned to CinemaBlend for the latest!
